|
The twelve-engine Dornier DO-X flying D-1929 flying ship, on July 18, 1929, which was under the command of Friedrich Christiansen, a former German Navy aviator, during its world tour, which began on on November 2, 1930, from Freidrichshafen, Germany and included Africa and South America. |
The DO-X was the largest aircraft in the world, when it was first flown, with Jupiter engines, on July 29, 1929, by Richard Wagner, but these engines had to be replaced, with twelve Curtiss Conqueror engines, as they did not produce enough power. In 1934, the DO-X was put on exhibit at the Aviation Museum in Berlin, Germany, where it was destroyed, during a bombing raid, during World War II. |
 |
The Dornier DO-X flying ship on January 10, 1932. |
 |
DORNIER
DO X
DORNIER
DO-X
DORNIER
DO-X SEAPLANE
DORNIER
DO X: LEGENDARY FLYING BOAT
Jacqueline Cochran, whose real name was Bessie Mae Pittman, was an air racing flyer, during the 1930's, and she and Amelia Earhart were the first two women to fly in the Bendix Trophy transcontinental air race, in 1935. She was the first woman to win the Bendix Trophy, in 1938, while flying her Seversky P-35 AP7, which is shown in this photo. She first took flying lessons in 1932, at Roosevelt Field, in New York, and received her pilot's license in two and one half weeks. In 1934, she received a commercial pilot's license and flew, with Wesley Smith, as her navigator, in the 12,000-mile MacRobertson air race, from London, England to Melbourne, Australia, winning the first leg of the air race, though she later had to drop out of it, in Bucharest, Hungary, when one flap of her dark-green Granville R-6H Q.E.D (Quod Erat Demonstrandum) monoplane, with registration number NX14307, wasn't functioning properly.(1) In 1938, she set a New York to Miami speed record, flying the route in 4 hours and 12 minutes, and was the first woman to break the sound barrier, which she did in 1953. In 1943, during World War II, she was the director of the United States Army's Women's Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) and, in 1996, the United States Post Office issued a stamp in her honor. She was born in 1910, in Pensacola, Florida, married Floyd Odlum, on May 11, 1936, and died on August 7, 1980. set a New York to Miami speed record in 1938, flying the route in 4 hours and 12 minutes, and was the first woman to break the sound barrier, which she did in 1953. In 1943, during World War II, she was the director of the United States Army's Women's Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) and, in 1996, the United States Post Office issued a stamp in her honor. She was born in 1910, in Pensacola, Florida, married Floyd Odlum, on May 11, 1936, and died on August 7, 1980. |
Jacqueline Cochran' Seversky P-35 AP7, with number "13" on its fuselage, at the 1938 National Air Races, in Cleveland, Ohio. |
(1) Page 113, Jacqueline Cochran and Maryann Bucknum Brinley, Jackie Cochran, Bantam Books, New York, 1987. This aircraft was later repainted white and flown, as the Conquistador del Cielo, by Mexican aviator Francisco Sarabia, on a non-stop flight from Mexico City, Mexico to New York City, on May 24, 1939, which covered 2,350 miles, in 10 hours and 48 minutes, and set a speed record. He carried 400 air mail covers on this flight and drowned in this airplane, about two weeks later, on June 7, 1939, after it crashed, into the Potomac River, while taking off on a flight from Bolling Field, in Washington, District of Columbia, to Mexico City. The crash was attributed to engine failure, caused by a lost mechanics's rag, which was sucked into the carburetor. The airplane is now on display at a museum in Ciudad Lerdo, Mexico.
JACQUELINE
COCHRAN
LITERATURE
AWARDS JACQUELINE COCHRAN
BIOGRAPHY
OF JACQUELINE COCHRAN, FIRST WOMAN PILOT
JACKIE
COCHRAN STAMP
CONQUISTADOR
DEL CIELO
Weldon B. Cooke was an early aviator and aircraft designer, and this photo shows one of the airplanes, with a Roberts two-cylinder engine, that he flew. He was killed in the crash of an airplane that he was flyining, in Pueblo, Colorado, on September 6, 1914. |